Holy ginormous 110 page thread, Batman! Anyway, here's my first impression of the new AI (in case anybody ever makes it this far into this thread).
A little background first:
I am pretty new to ED. I just started playing around February and only have the base game, but am planning on buying the season pass soon. I am currently ranked dangerous (so the game usually spawns somewhat rank appropriate enemies) and have earned most of my money RES grinding (simply because it was the fastest way to make money for me), but I have also ran many missions, and have spent over a month exploring. I have not done much mining or trading, but do cargo/courier missions fairly frequently to take a break from combat. I play mostly with FA on, and use gimballed weapons because I have found them better for RES farming than fixed. It's been, a couple of months since I saw a rebuy screen.
So, I decided after hearing all the horror stories of the new insta-death AI, I would start slow. I upgraded my (mostly) A rated Vulture to a c3 mc replacing the c3 frag cannon I was running (c3 beam on other hardpoint).
First, I went to a lowres. My first combat was with a expert vulture that somehow instantly took my fuel tank down to 1/4 full (what witchcraft is this?!). Anyway, after taking him out, I stooged around and took out some eagles but quickly got bored and went to the station to refuel.
Next, I tried a standard res. Meh, AI was a little tougher but still kinda boring so I decided to try a hires.
Here, things got interesting. Got in a prolonged fight with an adder (lol!) that I actually had to struggle to keep in my sights. He even got behind me a couple of times and I had to shake him, then resume the fight. He managed to ding me down to 75% hull damage before I finally took him out. A little later, I got in a fight with a DBS with similar results. I actually had to throw it in reverse a couple of times just to get him in my sights (something I've never had to do before). Anyway, after about an hour or so, it was time for bed, so with 59% hull and 1000 rounds of ammo left, I decided to go cash my bounties. Got interdicted on the way to the station, but didn't feel like dealing with it, so just boosted away (in a vulture w/ c class boosters no less), and had no problems escaping. Made about 1.5 mil (not counting KWS income), which was quite a bit less than usual.
Observations:
The NPC AI is definitely much improved, but the system authority ships are also much more effective. No more watching cops and robbers duke it out for 10 minutes with no result. Several times, I wasn't able to use my KWS because ships were taking so much damage, I would have missed the bounty if I had used it.
Small ships are much more effective. I actually almost felt slightly threatened by an eagle at one point.
I hope there is some way I can upgrade my ship for better maneuverability, like the AI seems to have.
Yes, it's harder to make money bounty hunting, but missions seem to pay way more now. I ran a couple of super easy 1-jump courier missions and made over 100K. Not terrible pay for easy money.
Didn't try hazres as they almost always spawn flights of three and taking on a flight of 3 ships by yourself is no longer a viable option. I did take on a couple of flights in the hires, but you'd better make sure your enemy's wingmates are preoccupied fighting other ships before doing this.
I didn't got blowed up, so there's that.
Conclusion: AI is more difficult, enough to actually be a challenge, but not unreasonably so, but at the same time, should not be made harder like some of the "old pros" think (people still need to be able to trade and explore without getting blown up every day). I do think the difficulty should be revisited in a while after everybody has had a chance to get used to it. Disclaimer: This is my initial opinion based on my first night playing with v1.6. I reserve the right to change it if deemed necessary by future events.
A little background first:
I am pretty new to ED. I just started playing around February and only have the base game, but am planning on buying the season pass soon. I am currently ranked dangerous (so the game usually spawns somewhat rank appropriate enemies) and have earned most of my money RES grinding (simply because it was the fastest way to make money for me), but I have also ran many missions, and have spent over a month exploring. I have not done much mining or trading, but do cargo/courier missions fairly frequently to take a break from combat. I play mostly with FA on, and use gimballed weapons because I have found them better for RES farming than fixed. It's been, a couple of months since I saw a rebuy screen.
So, I decided after hearing all the horror stories of the new insta-death AI, I would start slow. I upgraded my (mostly) A rated Vulture to a c3 mc replacing the c3 frag cannon I was running (c3 beam on other hardpoint).
First, I went to a lowres. My first combat was with a expert vulture that somehow instantly took my fuel tank down to 1/4 full (what witchcraft is this?!). Anyway, after taking him out, I stooged around and took out some eagles but quickly got bored and went to the station to refuel.
Next, I tried a standard res. Meh, AI was a little tougher but still kinda boring so I decided to try a hires.
Here, things got interesting. Got in a prolonged fight with an adder (lol!) that I actually had to struggle to keep in my sights. He even got behind me a couple of times and I had to shake him, then resume the fight. He managed to ding me down to 75% hull damage before I finally took him out. A little later, I got in a fight with a DBS with similar results. I actually had to throw it in reverse a couple of times just to get him in my sights (something I've never had to do before). Anyway, after about an hour or so, it was time for bed, so with 59% hull and 1000 rounds of ammo left, I decided to go cash my bounties. Got interdicted on the way to the station, but didn't feel like dealing with it, so just boosted away (in a vulture w/ c class boosters no less), and had no problems escaping. Made about 1.5 mil (not counting KWS income), which was quite a bit less than usual.
Observations:
The NPC AI is definitely much improved, but the system authority ships are also much more effective. No more watching cops and robbers duke it out for 10 minutes with no result. Several times, I wasn't able to use my KWS because ships were taking so much damage, I would have missed the bounty if I had used it.
Small ships are much more effective. I actually almost felt slightly threatened by an eagle at one point.
I hope there is some way I can upgrade my ship for better maneuverability, like the AI seems to have.
Yes, it's harder to make money bounty hunting, but missions seem to pay way more now. I ran a couple of super easy 1-jump courier missions and made over 100K. Not terrible pay for easy money.
Didn't try hazres as they almost always spawn flights of three and taking on a flight of 3 ships by yourself is no longer a viable option. I did take on a couple of flights in the hires, but you'd better make sure your enemy's wingmates are preoccupied fighting other ships before doing this.
I didn't got blowed up, so there's that.
Conclusion: AI is more difficult, enough to actually be a challenge, but not unreasonably so, but at the same time, should not be made harder like some of the "old pros" think (people still need to be able to trade and explore without getting blown up every day). I do think the difficulty should be revisited in a while after everybody has had a chance to get used to it. Disclaimer: This is my initial opinion based on my first night playing with v1.6. I reserve the right to change it if deemed necessary by future events.
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). Guess that's the last time I drink and fly.
